That Night
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl Au. Oneshot. A lot could happen in one night, but Carol knew now that she could handle whatever life threw at her.


**AN: This is from a tumblr prompt request.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Carol unloaded the washing machine and transferred the clothes to the dryer. She washed the one cup in the sink, a cup that had barely even had time to get comfortable there, and she flipped it upside down onto the drying towel to the right of the sink. She straightened the towel, just so, and she picked up the damp rag that she'd used to wipe down the counters and she wiped them down again. As long as she was wiping the counters, she might as well wipe down the stove. And from there, it wasn't really much of an effort to wipe down the microwave once more.

She was re-cleaning already cleaned surfaces and the amount of elbow grease needed to make the counters shine was less than she was hoping to put into it. It didn't take her long to abandon the efforts and to move onto some other mindless task. She opened the cabinets and put her effort into the ever-important task of rearranging the canned goods. She turned them, labels out, so that anyone opening her cabinet could immediately see what was available. She shifted a few cans, here or there, that she'd put away in a hurry after her last shopping trip, so that they were grouped correctly.

Her kitchen was immaculate, but it didn't stop there. If she found that her floors were dirty? She would clean the entirety of the floors in the house. If something spilled in the kitchen, she would mop the whole kitchen and all the floors. If one towel smelled off, they all needed to be washed, even if she was sure that some of them hadn't even be used.

It wasn't, as some who didn't know her well had suggested, an obsessive compulsive personality that drove her to be this way. It was habit. It was learned behavior. It was an inner response to an inner voice that belonged to a very real person in her outside stimuli.

He was gone, but he was never really gone.

And sometimes it was only a can out of place, a label turned away from the cabinet door, or an unseen crumb just under the corner of the couch that was the flame that lit his fuse.

No matter how far away he was, or how long he'd been gone, the learned response stayed with Carol. Some days, in a fit of rebellion against him, Carol would run through her house like she was possessed. She would knock down the cans, sending them as far back in the cabinet as she could even though she'd have to go in after them later. She would let things in the microwave overheat, explode, and then she'd refuse to clean it up, even though she'd have to scrub it clean later. She would eat crackers and cheese on the couch and then purposefully stand and dust herself off in the middle of the floor, even though she'd be the one that had to vacuum it up later.

When she was seized by those fits? It was her way of reminding herself that he was gone. She was stronger than she'd given herself credit for. She'd gotten rid of him and she'd freed herself from him. She'd freed her daughter from him. He was gone.

But he was never truly gone.

Then there were other days. The days when, for one reason or another, something happened to disrupt her life and her rhythm, when she was equally possessed by something. The something in those cases, though, was the need to busy herself with all the tasks that had been her daily tasks when he'd been there. She'd go through, like she was doing now, and clean the house so thoroughly that she gave herself blisters from scrubbing already scrubbed surfaces. She felt as though, because her mind was such a mess, that the mess must somehow be reflected on the outside. And even though he was gone, and he'd been gone for a while, he might somehow reappear and immediately see the mess.

It was foolish and it was irrational, but many things in her life had been that way. She didn't expect them to change entirely now.

A few more mundane tasks done in a fever of needing to keep her mind and her hands busy, and Carol wiped her hands on her pants. The skin on her fingertips was sensitive. It detected every scratch of the denim. She'd cleaned too long. And it still hadn't stilled her mind.

Carol found her cell phone and punched one of the buttons so that it would glow and tell her the time. Sophia would be home from school soon. She would come through the door, leave her backpack just inside it, and she'd make a snack. Then she'd sit in the living room in her sock feet and watch television while she ate. Television before homework was something that he'd never have allowed, so Carol was sure that it was a new allowance in the home.

Sophia would never know, if Carol were careful enough to hide it, how busy Carol's mind was at the moment.

When Sophia got home, she'd be fine. She could tend to herself well enough to be left alone for a few hours. She'd stay in the house, watch television, and then she'd do her homework. She was a good kid. She'd always been a wonderful child. She was, in Carol's opinion, absolutely the best child there was, even if he might not have agreed.

Carol used to think she wanted more. More, after all, if they were as wonderful as Sophia, shouldn't be a terrifying prospect.

Carol looked through her phone. She found the number she was searching for under recent contacts. She'd made the call the night before. She'd met Daryl one night when she'd gone out under the pushing of her friends. She needed to get out of the house. She needed to talk to people and she needed to talk about something besides Ed. She needed to remind herself that there was more to Carol Ann McAlister than Ed's ex-wife, domestic abuse survivor, and mother to Sophia. She needed to remind herself that she was a woman.

And she'd reminded herself that she was a woman. She'd let him remind her. Twice. Once in the truck cab as though they were rowdy teenagers and once at his small little house that he shared with his brother because he felt like he'd cheated her by only offering her something as cheap as a go in the truck. She'd reminded herself, too, why it was that she gave up drinking long ago. It didn't make her angry or aggressive, not like it had Ed, but it had made her forgetful. It had made her reckless. It made her lose the control that she valued so much. And, she knew, that it got her into trouble. Sometimes it got her into a whole world of trouble.

She'd saved his number in her phone and she'd given him hers. He hadn't called, though, and neither had she. She'd meant to, a few times, but she'd talked herself out of it at the last minute. Maybe he hadn't called for the same reason. Maybe he had other reasons.

Last night she'd called him out of the blue and he'd answered. He'd offered her, immediately, some warbled explanation filled with stammers and stops and stutters that she'd almost entirely ignored. She couldn't recall, today, a single word of why he said he hadn't called. It didn't matter anyway. She was equally as guilty. She hadn't called either, after all. It wasn't one sided and she didn't feel jilted.

Carol waited, staring at the number, for a moment, before she put the phone back on the counter. She circled through the house again and searched for a few more things to keep her busy. When she couldn't find anything, she returned to the kitchen and she made a snack for Sophia herself. She was just finishing it—cutting the crusts off the sandwich as though Sophia was still small enough to find such things wonderful—when Sophia came through the door.

She was thirteen years old, but so far she hadn't started the rebellion of teenage years. Maybe it was luxury that wasn't allowed to her because of what her early life had been like. Maybe she was just wired differently. Maybe the terror would start next week. As long as it held off, just a little longer, Carol could handle it.

"I made you a snack," Carol said.

Sophia dropped her bag and immediately came and hugged Carol tightly enough that Carol grunted under the pressure of the hard squeeze. Carol smiled to herself and rubbed her daughter's back.

"Thank you," Sophia said. "You smell like—Clorox."

Carol laughed.

"I was cleaning," Carol said. Sophia already knew that, though. "Day off."

"Some people do stuff besides clean on their day off," Sophia challenged.

"I did," Carol responded. "I made you a snack."

She slid the plate she'd prepared over just a little to get her daughter's attention. Sophia picked it up and thanked her again for the minimal effort that had gone into the preparation of the food.

"Actually—I'm going out," Carol said. "I won't be gone long. A couple of hours maybe? Will you be alright alone?"

Sophia rolled her eyes.

"I'm thirteen," she said, since that had become an answer and explanation for everything since her birthday.

Carol nodded and smiled softly at her.

"Don't open the door," she said. Sophia nodded. She was familiar with that too.

"I'll just entertain myself," Sophia said, a little drama added to it for her entertainment. "Keep myself busy with television. Rot my brain as a latchkey kid."

Carol reached and pinched at Sophia and the girl laughed and swayed out of the way, careful not to drop her snack.

"Just—I'll have my phone," Carol said. "You just call if you need anything?"

"I'm thirteen," Sophia responded, taking the plate and heading toward the living room. She offered Carol no goodbye, and Carol didn't request one. She liked seeing her daughter's independence. There were still plenty of times she proved that she was a little more a girl than the adult she liked to pretend to be, and Carol wasn't going to try to hold her back. Unlike some of the women she worked with, she didn't see her daughter growing up and becoming independent as a threat. She saw it as the promise that Sophia was alright. She'd be fine. And, one day, she was going to be able to take care of herself.

And that's what Carol really wanted for her.

Carol gathered up her purse and her phone, looked around the kitchen once more in case something jumped out at her that absolutely had to be done, and then she left the house and locked the door behind her. She didn't dial his number again until she was in the car. He'd be expecting the call.

Carol drove to the diner paying extra close attention to every turn signal, every turn, and every sign on the road. She was aware that she was distracted and she was, therefore, hyper careful to keep from letting that affect her. After all, she didn't want to die today. She didn't know what she wanted, but she knew that she didn't want to die. This, like everything else, would work itself out. She was beyond the point her in life where she thought that every single bump in the road was something that should simply lie down and make her quit.

She didn't quit. She never had. She never would. This was just another thing—another thing that she would take as it came.

She recognized the truck the moment that she pulled in. Her heart skipped a beat, wedged itself into her throat for a half second, and then settled back into place by the time that she opened the car door and dropped the keys into her purse. She didn't bother checking her appearance. She and her thundering heart simply made their way into the diner and she found him, sitting at a table, waiting for her.

He looked different. Maybe it was because it was the middle of the day. Maybe it was because neither of them had been drinking. Maybe it was simply because a month or so had passed since she'd seen him last and her memory hadn't recorded him well when it was laced with alcohol. He was still handsome, though, and she imagined that she'd still have wanted to talk to him—even without the social lubrication of the drinks.

Carol smiled and slid into the booth across from him. He smiled at her, a crooked half smile, and she thought his cheeks burned a little red.

"I'm sorry to call you out of the blue like that," Carol said.

"Hey—I mean—I meant to call you but..." he stammered out, launching back into the explanation she'd been given the day before. Carol cut him off quickly.

"I didn't say that to make you feel bad," Carol said. "I said it because I meant it. I'm sorry that I called you and I hadn't called you before. I should've, but I didn't. It doesn't matter."

He stared at her, a little surprised to be cut off, perhaps. Or maybe he was just surprised that he wasn't being asked to explain himself. Carol sighed. It was like ripping off a band aid. It wasn't going to be easy, and it was probably going to sting a little, but she'd feel better once it was done.

"Listen," she said, "I—am not here to ask anything from you. I'm not here because I expect anything. I guess I'm just here because I thought you had a right to know. I thought you should...at least know. But—whatever you say and whatever you want to do? It's fine. Because—I'm OK. I've made my peace. Or—I'm making my peace so..."

Now it was his turn to interrupt her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Daryl asked. "Just—say whatever it is. Then—we'll eat some lunch. Talk about—why the hell I'm so bad at making phone calls."

Carol stopped, struck by the words. She couldn't help but smile. Across the table, he was imploring her with his eyes, even more than with his words, to say what she had to say. The only thing was that she wasn't sure he'd feel quite the same way in a few minutes. Still, she came here for a reason and she was going to do what she set out to do.

"You can ask me to leave," Carol said. "If you want."

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Because you won't say whatever the hell it is on your mind?" He asked.

Carol shook her head.

"Because I do say it," she said.

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

"You remember that night?" Carol asked.

Daryl shrugged.

"Of course I do," he said. "Or I wouldn't have agreed to meet you for lunch."

Carol hummed and picked at a sugar packet to distract her fingertips, still tender from her morning scrubbing.

"Well—as it turns out? I brought home a little souvenir from that evening," Carol said.

Immediately, Daryl jumped slightly in his seat and Carol prepared herself for a reaction. She did not, however, find herself prepared for the reaction she got.

"Hey! That's on you! I don't got nothing! I'm clean...or I was. What the hell'd you give me?" He spat. Immediately he looked around and it was clear that he realized his voice had gotten too loud. Nobody around them seemed to be paying any attention, though.

Carol leaned across the table a little.

"I'm glad to know you don't have anything," Carol said. "And—neither do I. I didn't give you anything. You were the one handing out all the presents. I came here to tell you I'm pregnant—that's all. Just—pregnant."

Daryl sat back, a stunned expression on his face. That was fair. Carol had been stunned too. She wasn't even sure that she was over it now and she'd been stewing on it for three days.

"And it's yours," she added. "No doubt about it. And—I don't expect anything. I just—thought you should know."

Immediately, Daryl began to occupy his own fingertips with the wrapping of a straw. Carol looked around, hoping to get a waiter's attention, because she realized—seeing him fidget with the straw paper—that she was thirsty. When she looked back at him, he was still fidgeting, but he looked oddly more relaxed. He simply seemed to be chewing on it, somewhere in his mind.

Carol sighed.

"Well say something," she said.

Daryl looked at her, held her eyes for a moment, and then he shrugged and sat forward. He waved a hand in the air, trying to get someone's attention, and then he looked at Carol and hummed noncommittally.

"You hungry?" He asked. "You gotta be, right. That's—that's what'cha do when you're...you get hungry. Get'cha something to eat and—we'll talk about it."

Carol sat back in the booth. Now it was her turn to be struck. She didn't know what she'd expected, when she'd dialed his number with shaky hands the night before, but it wasn't this. She couldn't quite say what it was, but she could certainly say what it wasn't.

Still, she could handle this too, whatever it turned out to be.


End file.
